Chapter 18

                    Kimberly was walking down the streets with her phone in her hand, in the dilemma of whether to call Brian to check up on them or not, but someone bumped into her shoulder so hard that she dropped her phone, and that person dropped… his camera.

                    She picked up both the camera and her phone. The person was panicking when he shifted his gaze between the camera and behind her. Right when he finally looked at her fully, he freaked out even more.

                    “K- Kimberly-ssi!”

                    Kimberly almost tied her brows into a knot. She looked at the camera in her hand again. The person quickly took it away from her before he turned around to speed off, but she grabbed him by the shirt.

                    “Please, please let me go first!” He begged, sweating hard as he looked across the street.

                    There they were, Kai and Julianne. They didn’t notice Kimberly or the cameraman yet. In a blink of an eye, the leader already pulled him into a bakery shop nearby.

                    “Damn it. We lost him,” Kai spat, breathing heavily next to Julianne on the spot where the cameraman was supposed to be.

                    The damage wasn’t much because the camera just turned off. The man froze in his seat at the sharp gaze of the girl who was probably more than 10 years younger than him. Kimberly ordered hot chocolate for herself and hot coffee for the other, thinking it would be rude to just sit and talk. She took a sip of her drink.

                    “So you’re from the production team?”

                    The man widened his eyes. He denied, “N- No! I- What production team? What-”

                    “Ajusshi,” Kimberly warned. The other went silent.

                    “I might not recognize your face from the set, but I recognize that SM sticker on your camera.”

                    The man widened his eyes at her words.

                     “You knew my name, and you were running away from Kai and Julianne with a camera. What conclusion do I have here?”

                    “Kimberly-ssi,” the man called, “Please. Please let me go and pretend we didn’t meet. This was supposed to be a secret from-”

                    “From who?”

                    “F- From… you and the whole EXO and Pegasus…”

                    The girl sighed, “Have you been filming us all along?”

                    He looked down, not answering.

                    “So where are your other colleagues? Call him out,” she said, looking around the shop and outside the window.

                    “None of us was following you, Kimberly-ssi. We were told to only follow whenever EXO-K is also around.”

                    “What is it for?” For them to choose to film only when both the boys and the girls were together, there must be a reason for her. He kept his mouth shut, until she asked another question,

                    “What’s your name, sir?”

                    Kai called Suho and met up with all of them at the same park. He couldn’t believe they didn’t go and have fun anywhere but sat there with the guitar this whole time, but that didn’t matter much then. He urged everyone to go back to the hotel, reasoning it was already late in the afternoon. While he was still secretly discussing with Julianne if he should tell them or not, Kimberly was already listening to the whole story from the source on the other side.

                    “So you’re saying that we are the music video? That we’ve been filmed this whole time ever since we stepped into that interview set? And that there was actually no specific script but to catch real life situations of us flirting with EXO-K?”

                    The cameraman felt the guilt in his stomach. He explained, “That is all I can tell you, Kimberly-ssi. Not that I’m afraid to tell you more, I already told you when I wasn’t supposed to anyway, but there’s nothing more that I know. I’m just a cameraman.”

                    Kimberly agreed with him to not ask for his name and to not tell anyone about them meeting up like this, so that she can get the information she wanted to know.

                    “R-Remember, Kimberly-ssi, you ‘don’t know’ about any of this, and when you decide- or sleeptalk- or whatever- that you know about this, you knew it from a nobody, not me. A nobody,” the man reminded. His life was hanging on a red thread, and it depended on the girl whether to tell Lee Sooman to cut it or not.

                    “I don’t go back on my words.”

                    “Thank you. Thank you,” he said, almost crying while grabbing her hands.

                    “But!” she pulled her hands away, “You might be helpful to me in the future again, so I don’t think the deal should end here today.”

                    The man’s eyeballs almost popped out. He shook his head violently. “Kimberly-ssi!”

                    She didn’t reply. Instead, she cocked her head towards the camera bag that was sitting on the empty chair next to him. “What does it say? Seo… Seo Wook? I wonder if that’s your name, Seo Wook?”

                    He quickly covered the bag, but to no use, this girl was threatening him with her poker face, and the name she saw was right. He covered his face with both hands and groaned.

                    “What’s the deal, Kimberly-ssi?”

                    “We’d better be close from now on, so call me Kim. I’ll call you oppa. Wook oppa.”

                    Everyone was at the hotel, waiting for the oldest girl and the staff to come back. It was past dinner time, but it didn’t matter since Wendy ordered some food from the hotel for them a while ago. Now they were just lazing around on the sofas and couches.

                    Min couldn’t sit still, however. She was worrying about Kimberly because the girl had her phone turned off. It was already dark outside, but there was no sign of her. Right when she had made up her mind to call Brian’s phone, the door clicked open. The last girl poked her head inside.

                    “Hey…”

                    “Hey, Kim! You’re back!” Wendy was the first one to call out. The girls welcomed her normally while the boys pretended to throw tantrums.

                    “So unfair! How come you’re back so late? Had so much fun, huh?”

                    But certain two pairs of eyes were glued to her with no expression. Min was relieved, yet she still felt the need to find some time alone with Kimberly to talk. Sehun, on the other hand, just sighed, abruptly stood up, and finally left the center area without a single word.

                    “Don’t worry, Kim. You didn’t make him wait or anything. That boy’s just rude,” D.O explained upon seeing her gaze following EXO maknae. Kim smiled at him, to which he replied, “Welcome back.”

                    “What the heck, you two?” Chanyeol crept behind D.O and peered over his shoulder. His eyes glued to the boy suspiciously.

                    “Choi Sora, so what you said today was true?”

                    Sora blinked twice, “The daddy and mommy thing? Of course, oppa. Don’t tell me you still thought it was a joke until now.”

                    The big boy suddenly cried out, “Noooo! You broke my heart!”

                    Everybody was taken aback at the scene. Chanyeol was being overly dramatic and even pretended to shed tears. D.O looked at him like he was disgusting and started to scoot away.

                    “Yeol, were you in love with me or something?”

                    “Yah!” Chanyeol yelled, making everyone jump, “What the hell? You’re not even half as beautiful as Baekhyun, how could you compare yourself to-”

                    “Come on, Yeollie! I know my round eyes are irresistible,” D.O joked, widening his eyes as he spoke. This time the other was the one scooting away.

                    “Look,” D.O said, “Me being the daddy and Kimberly being the mommy doesn’t mean that way. We just adop-” He quickly covered his mouth, eyes widened, almost said the word Julianne shouldn’t hear.

                    But Julianne was the one finishing it, “Just adopted Sora.”

                    “I’m sorry, Julianne…”

                    “Adopt me too!” she said happily. All eyes laid on her in shock. “I’m serious! Adopt me too. I wanna have D.O Daddy and Kimmy Mommy too!”

                    That was a bad joke, Julianne. Everyone sighed.

                    “Kim, go take a shower. You must be tired,” Min said, pulling them back to the subject. Kimberly nodded and went inside the girls’ room. Min followed after.

                    “Kids, we’ve got a new schedule. Be prepared because it’s going to be hectic starting from tomorrow.”

                    The crew came back to the hotel and everyone poured into the center area. Manager Im started talking about work and ignored the fact that he knew they went out today. If he acted like he knew, they would know that he had spies following them too.

                    “In short, the title track of you guys’ album is finished. The demo will arrive here tomorrow morning. Your choreographer will be here with the demo to teach you first and the day after, you’ll have to record.”

                    “That fast, hyung? What about the music?” Suho questioned.

                    “The music is being recorded as we speak. The choreography involves the girls too so we can’t push it out any further. Dance practice comes first this time. The next thing is the shooting of teaser photos, which will be done when you have some time left from the practice. The thing that comes last is the shooting of the story part of the music video. Here’s the printout.”

                    Everyone accepted the paper from him and started to read. It was more detailed than what he just explained. Just by reading the first line, all of them could feel the upcoming heavy loads of work already when it said that they had to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning. The timetable wouldn’t end until midnight either.

                    “Suho and Kimberly, please stay. The rest can go. You need to wake up early tomorrow.”